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Donn McClean's Galway Festival reflections
The rest of the world can pass you by here a little bit. That’s Galway for you.
Like, when Denis Kirwan announced over the PA system that Rhys McClenaghan had just won, you wondered for a split second if it was another juvenile who had come here after running in a barrier trial at Naas.
It seems like a long time ago now that Feud won the opening novices’ hurdle under Danny Mullins. That was Richard O’Brien for you, one bullet, one runner for the week, then off down the road again with Royal Bond dreams. They’re not far out dreams either. Didn’t Mystical Power win the same race last year?
It was sunny on Monday evening. Then it rained. Then you put your umbrella up and the sun came out again. Then you took your coat off and it rained again.
That’s Galway too.
It is 23 years since Rock Of Cashel (Rock Of Gibraltar’s brother) finished second to Grey Swallow in the two-year-olds’ maiden on Galway’s opening evening. This year’s iteration of Rock Of Cashel (no relation to Rock Of Gibraltar, but a half-brother to Snowfall and out of a sister to Found) went one better.
The Wootton Bassett colt was impressive too, staying on strongly up the hill for Wayne Lordan to record the first of the rider’s four wins for the week, more than any other flat rider, the first of four too for trainer Aidan O’Brien.
And it is even more years since Noel Meade saddled his first Galway winner. Puppy Love by Donny Osmond was Number One in the singles’ charts then (Number One in the singles’ charts used to be a thing, honestly).
Between then and now, Noel Meade has won just about every race at Galway – there are 53 or them these days – and had celebrated every one of those victories, many of them into the small hours and beyond. He won the Plate for the first time in 2014 with Road To Riches, and he won the Plate for the second time in 2024, when Pinkerton saw off all-comers, keeping on strongly for Donagh Meyler to land Wednesday’s feature.
We didn’t know that Pinkerton would stay the Plate trip. In truth, his trainer didn’t know for sure either, but he thought that he had every chance. And he did, he had to, he had to pick up again when Duffle Coat came at him.
Sirius was slowly away in the Connacht Hotel (Qualified Riders’) Handicap on Monday, but that didn’t bother her owner David Dunsdon, who was also her rider. Still last as they turned to race down into the dip, the amateur rider just allowed his filly to make her ground in among horses as they raced around the home turn, then took her to the outside. He didn’t go for her immediately though, he sat, he waited, like a rider who rides winners every day of the week, and then he nudged her forward. He didn’t actually ask her for maximum effort until he had left the furlong marker behind him and, when he did, his mare bounded clear and sprang a 50/1 shock.
“It’s a dream,” said Dunsdon. “I hadn’t ridden a winner in five years, and for your comeback winner to be this race. This is the race you dream of.”
That’s Galway for you.
If it was a case that most of the money that went into the bookmakers’ satchels before the Connacht Hotel QR Handicap on Monday stayed in the bookmakers’ satchels after the Connacht Hotel QR Handicap on Monday, then surely all of it stayed in the satchels after the bumper on Thursday.
Brave Crogha had had seven runs before Thursday, and he had never reached the first three. On his final run before Thursday, he had finished 13th of 15 in a bumper at Ballinrobe, beaten 86 lengths. Iggy Madden’s horse was sent off at 200/1 for that Ballinrobe bumper, and he was sent off at 200/1 for Thursday’s bumper too but, given a fine patient ride by Áine O’Connor, he stayed on best of all up the hill to win well.
The last time his trainer had stood in a winner’s enclosure, any winner’s enclosure, was almost six years ago, and it was that very same winner’s enclosure, after Baby Bellini had won a handicap hurdle at Galway’s September meeting.
That’s Galway for you too.
Ross O’Sullivan hadn’t trained a winner at the Galway Festival before the start of the week. He had gone close before, Longbourn and Bang Po and Benefit Run, but he had never made it into the winner’s enclosure during Galway week. But on Wednesday he got there all right, with Talk In The Park, and, 35 minutes later, he got there again with Champella.
They weren’t really like buses, unless they are buses for which you wait a lifetime, then two come along within 35 minutes of each other, then another comes along the following day, and yet another comes along the day after that. Ross O’Sullivan’s last two runners before Galway had also won, so that was six runners in a row in Ireland, from Cork on one Friday to Galway the following Friday, six winners.
There was Galway Hurdle drama before they even lined up for the race, when Petrol Head was withdrawn by order of the stewards, and there was drama when they did line up, eventually, when some horses got flyers and some did not. But the race itself was all very straightforward, with Nurburgring the most likely winner from a long way out.
Joseph O’Brien’s horse found lots too when JJ Slevin asked him to pick up, he bounded up the hill to come seven lengths clear of his rivals. The second four-year-old to win the Galway Hurdle in two years, but only the second also since 2000, the Zoffany gelding wasn’t far off the very top juvenile hurdlers last season, and he wouldn’t have to improve a whole lot to take his place among the top hurdlers this season.
Joseph O’Brien also bagged Tuesday’s feature with Mexicali Rose. Third in the Listed Victor McCalmont Stakes at Gowran Park on just her second run for her current trainer, Kevin Blake’s filly showed a fine turn of foot when she was asked to pick up by Wayne Hassett, and she kept on resolutely to get home by a neck.
They say that you have to be drawn low at Galway, and yet, in that race, the Colm Quinn BMW Mile, the last seven winners before this year were drawn 10 or higher, and five of them were drawn 14 or higher. Not only that but, in 2023, the first four home were drawn 13 or higher, in 2022 the first four home were drawn 16 or higher, and in 2021 the first five home were drawn 13 or higher. Then Mexicali Rose wins from stall one.
That’s Galway for you.
Gordon Elliott had a really good week, and it could have been a really great week. Second in the Galway Hurdle with Ndaawi (another four-year-old) and second and third in the Galway Plate with Duffle Coat and Zanahiyr, he had four winners too, headed up by that battling performance by Battleoverdoyen, the 11-year-old Battleoverdoyen, to get up under Danny Gilligan and win the Galway Blazers by a nose.
Mark Fahey had a good week, two winners. Andrew Kinirons had a good week, two winners from two runners.
There were plenty of Mullinses on the board too, if the plural of Mullins is Mullinses, Tom and Emmet and Tony and Patrick and Danny and Willie, brothers and cousins and uncles and nephews all. And, a couple of days after we sadly lost Facile Vega, it was nice to see a daughter of Quevega, Cameletta Vega, Patrick Mullins in the famous Quevega Hammer and Trowel Syndicate silks, win impressively on her racecourse debut.
It was Willie who was crowned leading trainer of the week once again, although it wasn’t the runaway success that it has been in the past, and that was another feature of the week, the wide spread of winners. Joseph O’Brien, like Willie Mullins, also had five winners, while Aidan O’Brien and Gordon Elliott and Ross O’Sullivan and Jessica Harrington all had four. Wayne Lordan was the leading Flat rider with four, while Jack Kennedy booted home two winners on the final day, Flicker Of Hope and Hurricane Georgie, to take his total for the week to four too, more than any other National Hunt rider.
In total, 39 different jockeys rode winners, and 30 different trainers trained winners. And, a little unusually, no horse won more than one race. Fifty-three races, three seven-race days and four eight-race days, from early on Monday evening to late on Sunday afternoon, 53 individual winners.
That’s Galway for you too.
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